Spectacular 3-D Cosmic Image of Earth by Russian Electro-L Released [PHOTOS]

The Russians have proved that space lovers and astronauts do not need to depend on Nasa as the only source for high-definition imagery of space and earth.

The Russian Earth Observation Centre, NTs OMZ has released an ultra-high resolution of earth with the help of their new geostationary satellite, Electro-L.

Also called the Geostationary Operational Meteorological Satellite No 2 or GOMS No 2, Elektro-L No 1 was launched in 2011 as the first Russian geostationary weather satellite.

The Washington Post reported that Elektro-L is now in a geostationary orbit of earth 36,000 kilometres [~22,000 miles] above the equator, sending photographs of the entire planet every 30 minutes using a 2.56 to 16.36 Mbits per second connection with ground control. The images and the video of the Northern Hemisphere combine four light wavelengths, three visible and one infrared.

The image captured by the Electro-L is different from the usual Nasa images in that unlike the latter, the current earth image have been taken in a single shot at a massive resolution of 121million megapixels.

Nasa usually combines or stitches many images together to form a single image and rarely has images of the planet taken in a single shot.

According to the Daily Mail, the Electro-L satellite captures this kind of stunning image every half-hour as it monitors our weather and, if any strange weather phenomenon is noted, the Russian operators can remotely command the satellite to take images every 10 minutes.

However, Nasa's Earth Observatory scientist Robert Simmon says that the images are not any better or worse than any of Nasa's image but they show different things.

"The US has two similar operational geostationary satellites over the east and west coasts, EUMETSAT have one over Europe and one over the Indian Ocean, Japan has one over the far western Pacific," the Huffington Post quoted Simmon as saying about the similarities of Elektro-L to other geostationary satellites.

Catch a glimpse of the magnificent earth image captured by Russia's Elektro-L: